Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • A Year of COVID-19

    At this time last year, I was supposed to be in England. I coached the weekend of Mar 7-9, and was supposed to leave the evening of the 9th for a trip to the Redgate office and then a short vacation with my wife. A little over a week before, with Grant and a few friends in Germany, my wife said we should cancel the trip and not take chances on traveling.

    On Mar 11, the next weekend of youth volleyball cancelled in Denver and the city locked down. We had held a practice on Mar 10, and that was the last time I got to work with that group of kids as a team.

    In the last year, I’ve tried to help myself and others with my coping tips, and I can’t believe it’s been almost a year. I am proud of how Redgate responded, with meetings in mid March about how we could help others. While we needed to continue to build and sell software, our CEO also said this was a time for us to think about giving back more to others. From our cookbook to the kids coding club, I’ve been pleased by what Redgate has done.

    At the same time, I’ve also realized that my life changed in many ways. I haven’t been on an airplane in over a year. I’ve had more family time, but also this was a year of change, with my oldest moving away to teach in another country and my daughter going back to university, leaving my wife and I alone. We’ve had fits and starts in what we can and can’t do in Denver, especially with our hobby of coaching youth sports.

    I’ve been able to still go to the gym, but with a mask, something I think I’ll wear in situations for a long time, but something I don’t really enjoy. I had COVID last year, and while I came through unscathed, the illness lingered long enough to worry me. It certainly made me appreciate my health more.

    I’ve had more hours of video meetings in the last year than I might have had in my entire career at Redgate before that. And I’ve worked remotely for 12 years before the pandemic. I’ve rearranged my office 3 times, acquired some new hardware, including a new chair, and yet I still don’t quite feel settled after a year.

    I’ve given more remote presentations in the last year than ever before. I’ve typically not enjoyed them, preferring to be live in front of an audience. While I’ve gotten more comfortable, and even started to prefer to record things in advance, I still miss people.

    I’m hopeful the vaccine will start returning the world to normalcy, though I wonder if that will be this year or next. I also wonder how much we’ll be changed in the future in how we work and gather. I’m hoping for a return to events, celebrations, and entertainment as we had in the past, continuing to embrace some of the good of the last year with flexibility and the freedom to work in different places and at difference times. A bit of a mixed message there, but I do think there have been some good in the last year, with many companies realizing they don’t need someone to dress up formally and go to an office every day.

    It’s been a hard year, and I never would have imagined that I’d still be doing coping tips and at home every day at this point in time. Hopefully that will start to change soon.

  • Imposter or Student

    If you’re moving forward in your career, you’re a bit of an imposter. Actually, according to David Perell, everyone is an impostor. Many of the very successful people in technology built things that they knew nothing about. They learned technology, business, sales, and more on their way to success.

    I posted a note about the video above, and someone suggested that we are students instead. The negative connotation of an impostor, someone that deliberately fakes their knowledge is something that bothers many. I get that, and I do understand the desire to disclose what you know and what you don’t.

    We need to be lifelong students in the technology business, and maybe even in many other fields. The platforms on which we work, the tools we use, they do change. More importantly, the underlying technology we use might suddenly change as our employers shift directions or management moves in a new direction.

    While it’s useful to adopt the mindset of being a student, there are plenty of times when we are asked to work with something we don’t understand. Others may assume we know something and look to us to lead the way or solve problems. While we may protest or let them know that we are learning, we are still expected to produce some results.

    When I coach kids, we often tell them to “fake it until they make it.” They are learning new skills and sometimes don’t do well, but it is important to project an air of confidence, to believe that you will soon learn the skill. That mental projection of your future is important, and it instills confidence. I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of believing in yourself, even when you lack some ability.

    When you tackle something new, do you consider yourself an impostor or student? Either way, I hope you dive into the tasks with enthusiasm and confidence.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 12 Mar 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to bring to mind people you care about and send love to them.

    My direct family is very important to me, and I try to think about them and let them know regularly. Extended family less, but they are still people I care and worry about.

    However, there are others in the community that I contact less, and I want to take time to think about them for a few minutes. I don’t want to name people directly, but I’ll generally remember think about them in this post.

    I have a friend that is struggling with work and professional changes during the pandemic. We’ve been trying to get together, but it’s been hard. I sympathize, but I also know how busy I can get and how stress can increase if friends are reaching out a lot. As a result, I’ve tried to not put pressure on us getting together. Just a few “hope you’re doing well” notes.

    Another friend is in a new role. Busy, trying to impress, trying to do more, and enjoying it. I’m hoping this person is doing well and I’m looking forward to seeing them sometime in the next year.

    I’ve got someone I used to see regularly in my travels, and have enjoyed many drinks and meals over the years. I’m missing those interactions, but I see from their activity that they seem to be coping, probably better than I have been. I’m cheering them on today.

  • The Cloudy Future in 2021

    Ignite took place recently, and the keynote from Satya Nadella was interesting, and if you have time, interesting to watch. If not, there’s an excerpt in written form. In any case, I like his passion and excitement about the future. I’m slightly sad that he’s not on stage somewhere, and instead in a studio of some sort, but that’s the world today.

    There were five pillars of the keynote which related to the future of the cloud. One of these was the idea that we are at “peak centralized computing” now, but we need to get more decentralized. The idea here, I think, is that we will have more of the computing services taking place outside of data centers and server rooms, and in more devices. We already see some of this, with mobile devices, cars, sensors, and more handling some computing loads.

    The Edge is something Microsoft continues to push, and I think the adoption of this paradigm will continue, with some pre-processing or filtering occurring in devices or intermediate servers, and then less, or limited, data being loaded into our database platforms. I also expect that we’ll see more data loaded into a database somewhere, and less ETL into another platform and more just in time querying from a client or other data store.

    I was also glad that trust was a pillar, though I think this was an attempt to corral a number of disparate ideas into one topic. However, the idea of data protection, and individual rights such as privacy, are important, and I do think that Microsoft recognizes this. Even if they are just trying to build a product to profit, I appreciate the work they are doing in this area, adding new capabilities to allow companies to better control, limit access, and protect data in flexible ways. Now, if we can just get the companies to respect the individual’s data they hold, I think the world will be better.

    Lots of what Microsoft presents in their keynotes and conferences is aspirational, with limited experience or understanding of whether customers really will adopt these ideas. Every year I see some visions that don’t ever get widely used across the next year and aren’t mentioned the next year. However, some of their ideas are good, and some will evolve in different ways to help improve our world. This year, I loved seeing the remote ways HoloLens 2 is being used.

    I never know what will catch on, but I do like seeing the visions that others have for our world.

    Steve Jones